Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts

March 29, 2016

Canyonlands National Park


Mesa Arch
The charms of these [places] are beyond all common reason;
unexplainable and mysterious as life itself." -John Muir

We pulled up to the park entrance station at 8:30 in the morning. I had read on the NPS website that the Mesa Arch was best viewed early in the day. Stop number one. The ranger at the visitor center had given us a detailed seven-stop itinerary to cover the highlights of the Island in the Sky District in a single day. Mom and I were somewhat skeptical but managed to arrive at the Grand View Point Overlook (#7) at 3:30 where we contemplated taking a third hike though happy hour was calling and we had neglected to fill one of our water bottles with wine. The whole day we were planning our return trip, taking notes of campsites we liked, backpacking routes, and what we needed to do to get a permit to roam the 4-wheel-drive road at the bottom of the plateau. Canyonlands gets its name from the deep winding canyons carved by the Green and Colorado Rivers which converge within the park boundaries.

Upheaval Dome
The Green River from the Murphy Point Overlook
Grand View Point
Grand View Point
Grand View Point

March 24, 2016

Arches National Park


The infamous Delicate Arch
I checked off two more National Parks on my most recent road trip. Arches and Canyonlands, located within an hour of each other, hug the northeast and southwest side of Moab, Utah. Mom and I were surprised it took us this long to get there given our family's track record for visiting parks in the west. The last time we were in the area was 2002 on the way to Salt Lake City for the Winter Olympics and a ski trip. The town had changed quite a bit in 14 years, almost overrun with tourist trade, Jeep Wranglers jacked up on monster truck-sized wheels were everywhere, ready to conquer the landscape like a horde of military tanks. Skydiving also seemed to be big deal. We wanted to camp but couldn't make a campsite reservation even two months out; it was okay given that the mornings were still quite cold. I kept reminiscing about geology being my favorite science class in high school and how fascinating it is. If I had chosen to major in one of the sciences that would have been it. The two of us spent a full day there then went back the day we left to capture some of the arches in better light like the Landscape Arch below.

Landscape Arch
The Windows
Does anyone else see Jack Skellington?

The Three Gossips and the Organ, a scene I did a painting of in high school but didn't realize it was at Arches until much later
Pine Tree Arch
Tunnel Arch

August 12, 2015

Camping with a Newborn



My first nephew, William, was born June 6th. A few months earlier my brother called and said he wanted to take the baby camping this summer. None of us thought the idea was anything out of the ordinary considering our parents had done the same thing the summer after my brother was born when he was about the same age (7 weeks), though they chose to camp in their vintage VW bus rather than a tent. So of course he was met with an enthusiastic "yes!" from all of us. We figured as long as Will was warm, dry, and fed, everything would be fine, and it was. My brother found an area in Central Oregon called Camp Sherman, along the Metolius River which is known for great fly fishing in the spring and fall.








May 7, 2015

Big Bend Part II


Last week I posted the first half of my Big Bend pics. On our second day we drove to the south side of the park to hike into Santa Elena Canyon. One side of the canyon is Mexico the other the US, two countries divided by an invisible border running through the Rio Grande. Technically if you wade through the river to the other side you just crossed the border illegally. When we took this hike, there were at least half a dozen people standing in the middle of the Rio Grande.











Sunset hike to The Window, with supposedly spectacular views, though we
didn't think we had time to go all the way to the end and get back before dark

April 27, 2015

Big Bend National Park


I have been to more than half a dozen national parks in the West: Grand Canyon, Bryce, Zion, Yellowstone, Grand Teton, and Rocky Mountain to name a few. These annual summer camping trips no doubt inspired my childhood dream of becoming a forest ranger (I signed up to be a Junior Ranger at nearly every park) and later, in high school, to participate in an outdoor program where I led camping and backpacking trips for middle school students while teaching them wilderness skills and ethics. With the amount of gear I own sometimes I think I could be a model for REI.

Big Bend had somehow fallen to the bottom of the list, or perhaps in all honesty, was never on it. For one thing, the weather gets so hot there during the summer that the south side of the park pretty much shuts down. Maybe I didn't think Texas was capable of holding the same kind of breathtaking beauty I had found in Colorado, Arizona, Utah, and Wyoming. I certainly didn't think the state had mountains, and still, the highest peak is only 8,000 feet, nothing compared to the fourteeners of Colorado. But my perspective has changed; the park was beautiful and I can't remember the last time I could see stars all the way to the horizon. We camped at Chisos Basin, the only campground in the park nestled in the "mountains" and took day hikes. It's more than worth a repeat visit, next time maybe to backpack and kayak the Rio Grande (if there's still enough water).









April 23, 2015

Somewhere in the Middle of West Texas...


Little Pinky, where my mom and I stayed

there's a small quirky artist town called Marfa. To some, this town is known as just another place the hipsters flock to because it's the latest cool thing to do in a long list of trends soon to be forgotten. I'll admit, I did see a lot of them. As for me, I had no idea Marfa existed until my parents took a trip there a few years ago. And thus far, my adventurous free spirit has drawn me to some pretty interesting places...

I think it's my art school sensibility that made me find Marfa equally enticing and pleasantly amusing. Where I went to school, the definition of competitive sports was a recreational soccer team named The Black Lungs because everyone on the team was a smoker and a "cheerleading" squad named Rah Booty which was in reality a mixture of SNL-style improv and dance routines remarkably similar to Dance Dance Revolution. So the people and the energy of the town weren't all that shocking to me. I've seen as strange, if not stranger things having spent four years surrounded by these kinds of people, for in many ways, from a creative standpoint, they are part of my tribe.

Of course Marfa isn't all it's cracked up to be; as far as small towns go, it's pretty typical. But the quirks are in the details. We got to town around six in the evening and after a short happy hour we had a little trouble finding somewhere to eat, partly because it was late and partly because everything in town seems to open and close when they please. Maybe they're open. Maybe they're not. This restaurant is open this day, but not this day. They're usually open until this time but sometimes close early or stay open later... After a while I think this would be irritating, but in the short time we were there, it was just another thing I found amusing. The next morning we found Marfa Burrito, the kind of restaurant you wouldn't set foot in unless someone told you about it, but oh man was the food good. Ramona, the Hispanic woman who owns/runs the place doesn't speak English, so you're limited in what you order by the amount of Spanish you speak unless there's grandchild or a border patrol agent to help you.

We stayed in a trailer park/campground called El Cosmico. Looking around, I found that I couldn't stop laughing and smiling. The compound of vintage trailers, teepees, and safari tents shares a fence with the headquarters of the local border patrol. We rented Little Pinky, a small trailer painted a color I like to call Barbie pink. Pinky is just big enough for two people, though if you're over six feet tall you wouldn't be able to stand up straight. Off the deck is a shower and flush toilet, so it can feel more like "glamping" than camping.



From left to right: Kozy Coach, Vagabond, Branstrator

Royal Mansion, Spartan Mansion

yurt

teepees

Vagabond, Kozy Coach

Wagons to haul your stuff from the parking lot


Food Shark food truck